Radar Cases

Radar sightings of UFO's are remarkably common, and also the most authentic. The word of expertly trained operators, backed up by tangible echo returns from unidentified intruders is hard to deny. In many cases these bizarre blips that suddenly invade military and civil radar screens are seen to execute manoeuvres completely beyond the abilities of any known aircraft. Ground speeds of up six thousand m.p.h are nothing unusual, and as if to add further credence to these incidents, many of these 'radar visuals' as they are called, have been simultaneously witnessed by naked eye observers, both on the ground and in the air!

articles & documents

Bruce Maccabee

Radar and radar-visual sightings were among the various types of UFO sightings discussed by the review panel sponsored by the Society for Scientific Exploration in the Fall of 1997. This paper, a response to the panel opinion, demonstrates that careful consideration of atmospheric effects is not sufficient to explain at least some of the radar, radar-visual, and photographic sightings that have been reported over the years.

Steven Greer, Disclosure Project

This area of testimony deals specifically with pilot encounters, radar cases and related cases. It should be pointed out that for decades, people who have been skeptical of the UFO subject have asserted that if these objects were real, they would have been tracked on radar. We have no fewer than 20 witnesses from the Air Force, the Marines, the Navy, the Army, and civilian authorities in the United States and abroad who are qualified air traffic controllers and pilots who have seen and tracked these objects on radar. R

Gordon D. Thayer, Journal of Astronautics and Aeronautics; September 1971, UFO Subcommittee of the AIAA

with two highly redundant contacts -- the first with ground radar, combined with both ground and airborne visual observers, and the second with airborne radar, an airborne visual observer, and two different ground radars -- the Bentwaters-Lakenheath UFO incident represents one of the most significant radar-visual UFO cases. R

This scientific paper, presented by physicist James McDonald in 1970, "comments upon and cites some examples of a category of unidentified radar returns that do not seem to be well-known to investigators in radar meteorology, despite the fact that the phenomena have frequently been attributed to anomalous propagation and other weather effects. These are a type of returns observed on operational radars, chiefly military and air traffic radars, intermittently over a period of about twenty years, yet never subjected to any very careful, systematic, and extended scientific scrutiny, as near as I have been able to ascertain."
R

Velasco presented information on radar cases drawn in part from the files of GEPAN/SEPRA (see Appendix 1). He pointed out that one catalog (the "Weinstein catalog" now under development at GEPAN/SEPRA), with 489 cases in all, contains 101 (21%) radar/visual cases (cases that involve both radar detection and visual observation), and the files of the US Air Force Blue Book project contain 363 cases of which 76 (21%) are radar/visual cases. R

Maj. Donald Keyhoe, From the TRUE Report On Flying Saucers, 1967

In 1952, the Director of AF Intelligence admitted more than 300 cases of radar tracking and visual sightings confirmed by radar. In the ensuing years, there have been at least 2,000 additional radar cases in the U.S. alone. When the full story of the UFO's is written, radar will prove to have supplied indisputable technical evidence which finally convinced many previous skeptics.

Martin Shough, United Kingdom 2002 (and NARCAP)

The Condon Report

At first consideration, radar might appear to offer a positive, non-subjective method of observing UFOs. Radar seems to reduce data to ranges, altitudes, velocities, and such characteristics as radar reflectivity. On closer examination however, the radar method of looking at an object, although mechanically and electronically precise, is in many aspects substantially less comprehensive than the visual approach. In addition, the very techniques that provide the objective measurements are themselves susceptible to errors and anomalies that can be very misleading.

Donald Keyhoe, TRUE Magazine, 1952

U.S. Air Force and civilian radar experts know enough about temperature inversion to be sure that it doesn't explain the strange objects they've seen on their scopes in Washington, and in other places.

James McDonald, Statement on UFOs to U.S. House Committee on Science and Aeronatics, 1968 Symposium on UFOs

With so much radar equipment deployed all over the world, and especially within the United States, it seems sensible to expect that, if there are any airborne devices maneuvering in our airspace, they ought to show up on radars once in a while. They do indeed, and have been doing so for all of the two decades that radar has been in widespread use. R

websites & organizations

This page is under construction but contains many of the key radar cases, many of them radar/visuals (RV's). The current list (Weinstein) of radar cases exceeds 489; 76 of which are RV's, and contines to grow. The majority of the most recent 39 cases listed were obtained from Richard Hall's Volume II, The UFO Evidence: A Thirty-Year Report. (Catalogue of UFO Radar Cases).

UFOs at Close Sight

Many ufologists are aware of this case, but most people are not. This is undoubtedly one of the most important UFO events in the Blue Book files, but surprisingly was not listed among the "unknowns". The case impressed Dr. James E. McDonald and Dr. J. Allen Hynek, and even more so notable, the Condon Committee. This case involved observations of unidentified objects by USAF and RAF personnel, extending over 5 hours, and involving ground-radar, airborne-radar, ground visual and airborne-visual sightings of high-speed unconventionally maneuvering objects in the vicinity of two RAF stations at night.